HOUSTON — Baseball is rarely easy to predict, and so Lucas Ramirez has made a habit of the next best thing.
In the months leading up to his World Baseball Classic debut for Team Brazil against Team USA, the outfielder ritually practiced affirmations and visualizations to prepare for his entry onto baseball’s international scene.
“Ever since the (WBC) qualifiers, I was envisioning that first at-bat bomb,” Ramirez said. “And it’s crazy that it actually happened. For five months, I’ve been – every time before I go to bed after I pray, I visualize it. And it happened.”
So when Ramirez rounded the bases at Daikin Park on Friday night after he delivered a leadoff home run in Brazil’s first at-bat of the tournament – one of two solo home runs he hit in the game – he screamed, “I told you!”
“I say go out there with confidence (and) you can do anything you speak,” Ramirez said later. “If you say it out loud, it’ll happen. I’m telling you. It will happen.”
Although Team USA broke the game open in the late innings for a 15-5 win over Brazil, two of Brazil’s youngest players provided the team’s brightest moments.
At 20 years and 49 days old, Ramirez is the youngest player in WBC history with a multi-homer game. His teammate, Brazil pitcher Joseph Contreras, the youngest player in the tournament at 17 years and 291 days old, got USA captain Aaron Judge to ground into an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded.
When asked how that moment ranked in his career, Contreras, a senior at Blessed Trinity Catholic High School in the Atlanta suburbs, said, “That has to be up there. That’s definitely like a top two moment. I would say the first one obviously was winning the state championship back home. There’s nothing better than winning it all.”
Both players represent Brazil because of their mothers’ heritage and are the sons of MLB legends. Ramirez’s father Manny won two World Series titles with the Red Sox and was a 12-time All-Star. Contreras’ father José was a World Series champion with the White Sox in 2005 and an All-Star in 2006.
Both fathers were in the stands at Daikin Park on Friday to watch their sons’ WBC debuts. The performances the sons delivered were proof that they can create their own legacies.
“Having Manny Ramirez as my father is obviously a good thing and a bad thing,” Lucas Ramirez said. “It’s a little hard. Everybody expects so much. That’s why, maybe, I visualize and say things, I guess – because I got to paint my own picture. I got to be Lucas Ramirez, and I got my own path.”
He wasted little time. Judge’s two-run shot in the top of the first inning gave the USA an early 2-0 lead that was halved a short time later.
Leading off the game for Brazil against San Francisco Giants ace Logan Webb, Ramirez deposited a low inside-corner fastball over the wall in right-center field. Feet from where the ball landed, the Brazilian contingent in the home bullpen went berserk, with one reliever even hanging over the fence.
Besides thinking about hitting a bomb, Ramirez said another thought crossed his mind right before he went up to the plate.
“I’m gonna go out there and give it my all, and I’m just gonna have fun,” he said. “Too many people work on the field and they make baseball their whole life. They have a bad game, and they’re going to have a bad attitude the whole rest of their day. Like, this is temporary. We’re here temporarily, and we’re gonna go out there and have fun and be in life.”
In the top of the second inning, Contreras took over for Brazil starter Bo Takahashi and exacted revenge against Judge, but not before getting into a jam.
After retiring the first batter he faced, Contreras gave up a hard-hit double to Brice Turang and surrendered back-to-back walks to Bobby Witt Jr. and Bryce Harper to load the bases for Team USA’s captain.
Contreras got to a 1-1 count against Judge and threw a two-seamer on the inside of the plate. Judge grounded into a 5-4-3 double play to end the inning. Osvaldo Carvalho, Brazil’s first baseman, pumped his fist wildly while Contreras walked to the dugout and collected high-fives and pats on the back.
“It was just a surreal experience,” Contreras said. “I tried to visualize on that and make sure keep breathing, but as soon as the lights came on and I was on the mound, it was like ‘Alright, now you got to face Byron Buxton. OK, now it’s real.’ Game sped up on me a little bit but now I know for the next time.”
Following his scoreless frame, Contreras allowed two of the next three batters he faced to reach base before Kyle Schwarber scored on a wild pitch and knocked the teenager out of the game with Brazil trailing 3-1. Still, Team USA came away impressed by Contreras’ outing.
“Impressive. I know I wasn’t doing that at that age, that’s for sure,” Judge said. “Just great stuff. I know he had some poise on the mound. He’s throwing up to 100 miles an hour. He’s facing Team USA, a lot of guys he has seen on TV or different things like that. It was just impressive seeing him control himself out there and get out of a big jam.”
In the eighth inning, Ramirez blasted another home run on a one-out pitch from USA reliever Gabe Speier, making the score 8-5.
When Ramirez and Team Brazil manager Yuichi Matsumoto exited the interview room after the game, a Team USA contingent was waiting in the hallway for their turn. USA manager Mark DeRosa told Ramirez, “Way to swing the bat!” Judge shook hands with Ramirez, who in turn asked the three-time American League MVP to take a selfie with him.
Ramirez plays in the Los Angeles Angels organization and spent the 2025 season at the High-A level. Contreras will graduate from high school this spring and is committed to play college ball at Vanderbilt, if he is not drafted by an MLB organization.
Neither has made it to the majors yet, though each inherited certain traits from their dads.
Ramirez mirrors his father’s swing mechanics, though he was taught to hit lefty instead of righthanded. The 20-year-old was drafted in the 17th round in 2024 and last March helped Brazil qualify for the WBC.
The first pitch Contreras learned how to throw was his father’s infamous forkball. The son is 6-foot-4, tall and lanky like his father, and possesses the same quiet confidence.
“Oh man, that kid is something special,” Ramirez said. “Obviously, he comes from a father who plays baseball as well, so that’s been great. That kid’s going to be lights out one day.”
Ramirez regularly takes Christmastime trips to Brazil to visit his grandmother and grandfather, who own a livestock farm there. He said playing for Team Brazil has only strengthened his connection to the country. Ramirez, who speaks fluent Spanish as well as some Portuguese, has asked older players about Brazil’s lone prior WBC appearance in 2013 and been taught by some teammates how to dance to Brazilian funk music.
Friday night’s loss to the USA in pool play left Brazil still searching for its first WBC win after going 0-3 in the 2013 tournament. Brazil is scheduled to play remaining pool games against Italy, Mexico and Great Britain in Houston.
The final scoreline could have been worse, but Team USA’s offense was more junk than juggernaut. Despite Brazil’s pitchers walking 17 batters, hitting two more batters and incurring three pitch clock violations, the Americans hit 5-for-21 with runners in scoring position and stranded 13 baserunners.
What most fans will remember about the night, however, is how two burgeoning stars stole the spotlight from the tournament favorite.
Certainly, Ramirez and Contreras will never forget it. And next time Ramirez goes to visualize his success, he can close his eyes and picture those moments again and again.
This post appeared first on USA TODAY
